(Re-posted 17 September 2020) (Originally posted October 2018)
Late last month,
going through the Family Archive at Don’s house, Don and I found his
original FREUND family tree which he prepared in the 1970s, most likely
with information from Tante Doe (Elisabeth Dorothea FREUND geb. FREUND
(1898-1982)). The main FREUND family tree started with our great great
grandfather Hirsch FREUND (ca.1786, Schmiegel -1863, Breslau). We also
found a brief family history written by Tante Doe that also seemed to
start with Hirsch FREUND, but which had an inserted note that Hirsch’s
father was named Jakob FREUND.
We did not find an old (1970s)
family tree which I recall as my starting point on FREUND family
research in the 1980s and 1990s. As I remember it, that family tree
started with Jakob FREUND with the information that he was born in “the
1730s” and died in 1807 (or about 1807). However, while the source
eludes me, there is this note in my family file for Jakob FREUND:
“[assumption: this is the same as Hirsch Freund's father Jakob Freund (1730s-1807, Lissa)]”
That note was written in November 2002 after I had found this entry:
F - No. 31 Freund, Jacob, S. d. Samuel (aus Schmiegel) 1 Tischri 568 / 3 Oct. 1807
which
is on page 20 of the document “Aus dem Friedhofsregister der jüdischen
Gemeinde Lissa, Posen 1734-1930” (copied from Bernhard Brilling
Collection, Jüd. Museum Frankfurt) which I had copied from the James
Bennett Collection (AR 5518 - Folder II/3) in the archive of the Leo
Baeck Institute.
Based on the name “Jacob FREUND”, being “aus
Schmiegel”, dying in 1807, and dying, or at least being buried in,
Lissa, it was my conclusion in 2002 that this death/burial information
was for Hirsch FREUND’s father Jakob FREUND.
That conclusion also
had the advantage of identifying a new great great great great
grandfather, Jakob’s father Samuel. Having an ancestor named Samuel
[FREUND] seemed reasonable since Hirsch FREUND had named his first son
Jakob in 1821 and his second son Samuel in about 1823.
Sometime, I
think in the last 5 to 10 years, I ran across the information that
there was a R. Siegfried FREUND who was born in Schmiegel in 1829. He
was rabbi in Görlitz for over 50 years, from 1857 to 1914. He died in
Görlitz in 1915. He was a contemporary of my great grandfather Wilhelm
Salomon FREUND (1831, Schmiegel - 1915, Breslau). So, of course, I
wondered whether they might have been first cousins, with FREUND fathers
in Schmiegel who would have been brothers. Possible; or maybe they
were from two different Jewish families in the little town of Schmiegel
who happened to both adopt the name FREUND in the early 1800s. Also
quite possible.
R. Siegfried FREUND first made it in to the
family file in October 2014 when I added information from a BRANN / KANN
Stammbaum prepared in 1936 in Glogau by Hans LACHMANN (b.1900, Lissa)
and received from Viviana SALAMA geb. BRIEGER, possibly back in 2000.
Siegfried’s brother Fedor FREUND (1831, Schmiegel - 1890, Breslau) was
married to Stephanie KANN, a 1st cousin 3 times removed to Viviana, and
2nd cousin once removed of Hans LACHMANN (and also the great great aunt
of Ruth LYNN geb. NADELMAN).
Interestingly, R. Siegfried FREUND
was married to a LACHMANN, Doris Sara LACHMANN, but I did not learn of
her from the family tree prepared by Hans LACHMANN. Differently
interesting, Siegfried’s and Fedor’s mother was Sophie (Pesse) SKLOWER
of the name-sake family of the Sklower Schul in Breslau where the FALK
family was active for over a century.
The father of Siegfried and
Fedor was Marcus (Mordechai) FREUND (ca.1776, Schmiegel - bef 1869,
possibly in Breslau). In March 2017, I learned from the Heirats-Anzeige
for his second marriage to the divorcee Sophie SKLOWER in 1824 that
Marcus’ father was named Samuel FREUND. With Marcus born in about 1776
and Hirsch FREUND born in about 1786, they could have been brothers, but
Marcus’ father was Samuel, while Hirsch’s father was supposed to be
Jakob — in fact, “Jakob ben Samuel”. Jakob and Marcus could not
reasonably be brothers, or half-brothers, because Jakob was believed to
be 35 to 45 years older than Marcus.
This constellation of names
quickly led to a new family ancestry theory. What if Jakob was not
Hirsch FREUND’s father, but his grandfather? If Jakob was really born
in the 1730s, there was plenty of time to fit in another generation
between Jakob and Hirsch, who was born ca.1786. What if Jakob had a son
Samuel who was that father of Marcus FREUND and was also the father of
Hirsch FREUND? That putative son Samuel would have been named after his
paternal grandfather. And presumably, that Samuel FREUND would have
died about 1822, between the time when Hirsch named his first son Jakob
(1821) and his second Samuel (ca.1823), and before Marcus had his son
Siegfried (1829) who had the Hebrew name Samuel.
I have not found
any primary sources identifying Hirsch FREUND’s father. The FREUND
family burial site in the Lohestrasse cemetery no longer has the
gravestone for Hirsch FREUND. The “Sterberegister vom 1. Januar 1861.
bis 31. December 1871” (JHI file 105_0565) has an entry for Hirsch
FREUND, but the Hebrew portion has his name only as Zwi FREUND without
the common “ben XYZ”. Likewise, the Todesanzeige for Hirsch FREUND also
does not give his father’s name.
This new theory and the lack of
confirmatory evidence was what led me to want to review my original
sources for the identity of Hirsch’s father as Jakob FREUND. From that
review, it seems like Tante Doe may have added the information that
Hirsch’s father was named Jakob after she had put together her
recollections on the FREUND family. If, as I now hope, Tante Doe was
wrong about this, it could be that she knew that her grandfather Jakob
(ben Zwi) FREUND (1821-1895) was named after an ancestor of his, and
just assumed it was his paternal grandfather. Or, she might have been
told that Jakob was named for his “grandfather” meant as a generic term
for ancestor, as appears sometimes in Hebrew gravestone inscriptions.
Either way, if Jakob was named after his great grandfather, rather than
his grandfather, it would make room for an extra generation between
Hirsch and Jakob, and that gap could be filled in with Marcus’ father
Samuel FREUND.
I tried to trace the descendants of Marcus’ known
sons R. Siegfried FREUND and Fedor FREUND. Siegfried had two sons Otto
and Martin. Otto was a physician in Posen, but I have not found
information on a wife or any children. Martin was a dentist in Berlin.
He did marry, but his only child appears to be an adoptive daughter. I
was able to trace her and her family in Israel, but did not manage to
make contact with Eva’s daughters. Fedor had two daughters, but I was
not able to find any living descendants.
I had hoped to find a
family member with a trove of information about his or her FREUND
family history, or to find a direct male-line descendant to open up the
opportunity for a Y-chromosome DNA comparison, but neither of those
plans seems to be an option.
So for now, finding some primary
source information on Hirsch FREUND’s father is probably the best option
for determining whether Hirsch and Marcus were brothers.
